PAOGA - Privacy & Trust in the Digital Age

January 14, 2008

Clement James at VNU reports that 'analysts expect to
see changes this year in the way social media is used and an increase in its
effect on business'.Will Beresford, strategy director at Beyond Analysis, believes that
traditional search engines will become increasingly less relevant to the
consumer and that businesses will need to rethink their online strategies.We at PAOGA believe that this year will see the 'tipping point' from CRM to VRM when individuals, in their various roles as consumers, citizens, patients etc., will take more control and responsibility over their online persona and play an active role in the marketing of products and services.A cavalier attitude to individuals personal information and identity will not be tolerated and recent revelations about serious data loss resulting from woefully inadequate security and, more importantly, lack of managerial concern will play a vital role in an organisations brand value and reputation.MASHsport, built on the PAOGA platform, will provide an example of a Responsible Social Network in which advertising and product/service information can be 'pulled' at the request of the individual rather than 'pushed' based upon spurious customer data.Sport is only one sector where the PAOGA platform will deliver confidence and peace of mind to consumers. Recruitment, Finance, Health, Property, Media, Education, all will benefit from a more transparent 'conversation' between buyer and seller.We see consumers paying for better, accurate and relevant information and being paid by suppliers for profiles of wants and needs, wishes and dreams whilst protecting the individuals anonymity where appropriate.Happy New Year!

January 11, 2008

Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 today interviewed Simon Davies of Privacy Internationaland a number of victims of identity 'mugging' who explained not only how easy it was for the data mugger but also how difficult it was to re-establish their credit ratings, as long as 2 years, and how disinterested the authorities responded to this 'crime'. We have also heard the corporate response to Data Protection Act compliance as "When we get fined we'll do something about it".How many more radio programmes, tv documentaries or press articles does it take until people get mad enough to demand action by not just government but also their banks and suppliers?The recent case of the NHS employee who found that a major pharmaceutical company was, without her knowledge or consent, tracking her and others with her particular complaint. Of course if these details had been stored in her PAOGA profile then her 'identity' would be separate and linked only with a PUID (PAOGA Unique IDentifier) which would allow the pharma to trawl aggregated data without compromising any of the individuals identities.Like Simon Davies, we believe that your data is owned by you and you should be able to take responsibility to control it's use and distribution.PAOGA is committed to providing the tools so that you can protect and manage your personal data.Sign up here for free to try it. The more members we have then the more pressure we can put on the organisations to respect our personal information. Instead of us proving who we are when they phone or email us Privacy International are campaigning for us to ask "And Who are You?" .We believe that organisations who want your business should agree to sign up to your EULA which defines your terms and conditions for revealing personal information including that it is NOT for resale.To achieve this it requires a change of attitude about the value of an individuals (citizens) data at the very top. With the current mindset, all the technology in the world will not make one iota of difference.